Christmas!

I know it's early but I start to get antsy when I see trees for sale by the side of the road. I spent the last three nights working on a cranberry wreath for my wonderful neighbor who takes care of the cats when I'm out of town. I'm really happy with the finished product. Ignore the photo quality - I left my memory card at work and only had my phone to take a picture.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Lilgrams hope you enjoyed your turkey.

FAIL!

So, this month I've shown my true dedication to blogging. I've been busy, I swear! I've mentioned a lot that I get kind of stupid when I'm stressed out or tired - this morning I held my coffee mug at such an angle that I poured lukewarm coffee down my chest and didn't even notice until the coffee started pooling between my side and the couch cushion. Then when I was debating whether I could get by without changing shirts (I was just wearing a black undershirt) I poured coffee straight down my front while taking a sip. Obviously I need a break. Good thing I'm headed to Florida tomorrow!

Flying at the holidays stresses some people but I have a very zen-like approach to the whole experience. It is so rare that I can just sit and read without having anything else to do that I enjoy layovers and arriving early for flights. I think airports are one of the easiest places to entertain yourself - there's no better place for people watching. My family often plays a game in airports called "Mate for Life." You position yourself in a prime people watching area and say that the tenth man (or woman, as the case may be) to walk in front of you is your mate for life. Your mate for life could be a surly sixteen year old traveling with his family or an ancient woman in a wheelchair. There are endless variations: you can find your seat partner for the next flight, the person with whom you would to switch wardrobes, etc.

I'll report back with details if I have any fun airport experiences and I'll try to keep posting for the rest of the month. Word is there's going to be an apple stack cake in Florida that will merit its own post.

I will never be a superstar blogger

Well, I made it 11 days. I've been pretty stressed out and don't have a lot going on other than work so I haven't had the energy to sit down and write something (as the last few posts show). I'm going on a field trip down to Davidson today to talk to some old professors so hopefully I'll have some pictures or some stories for tomorrow. Meanwhile, go read about Koko and look at some pictures of her with some kittens (I looked for just a second but didn't see any of All Ball).

Inspired by this.

Rant

I want to publicly state my stance againse flavored deodorants. Asian Pear? Mystic Rain? All I want is some damn unscented deodorant and it's hiding behind baby powder and shower fresh. I'm just saying, maybe you should think about how that Asian Pear is going to smell at the end of the day.

Day 10

Every holiday has its own list of required readings and viewings. Some people say it's not Halloween unless they watch the Charlie Brown special. It's definitely not Christmas for me without my dad's reading of The Night Before Christmas. The link below is one of my personal Thanksgiving readings - The Black Table's turducken instructions. I've never made or even had turducken but this article makes me want to get into the kitchen with a carving knife, stuffing, and a baseball bat. It's a little long but totally worth it.

The Road to Turducken

Video tapes in my dresser I can't get rid of

• Episodes of My So Called Life, including the Halloween one and the one where Angela thinks Jordan has written a song about her but it's really about his car. Heh.
• Several MST3K movies, including Attack of the Killer Shrews and the rodeo short.
• News clips of the foreign exchange student who lived with us in middle school.
• Episodes of 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation, with meticulously documented contents.
• A copy of Super Troopers that mysteriously appeared in our senior apartment in college. It has no label, no commercials, and nothing else on the tape. No one ever claimed responsibility.
• The CMT Crossroads episode with Elton John and Ryan Adams.
• Fifth grade research project presentations, featuring everyone in my fifth grade class.

Bonus cassette tapes!

• An exercise mix made in high school (probably heavy on the Blink182)
• Out of Order with Jed the Fish from the mid 1990s. Man, I loved that show.

Day 8

Weekly Round-Up!
Reading: The Corrections. I started this several years ago and couldn't get past the first thirty pages. At the insistence of friends I started again and like it much better this time around. Please shoot me if I end up like any of the characters in this book.

Stressing out: Turns out grad school apps are due in December, not March like I thought (I have no idea where that came from but it's been stuck in my head). Umm, maybe it's time to find some references and order some transcripts? I'm on it as soon as the panic attacks stop.

Loving: David Anders on Heroes. Now that we're back in the present (ancient Japan=bad idea) I can't wait to see how his character is involved in everything. He can do no wrong in my book. Also loving - the Arrested Development episodes with Charlize Theron. I've been rewatching these lately and they just never cease to be funny. I saw a car a while ago with a British flag-patterned bumper sticker with the text "Mr. F" - I seriously wanted to give the driver a cookie.

Not discussing: Yeah. Gardner-Webb.

Signs It's Fall

• Morning coffee has been replaced with tea
• Tights and skirts all week long
• Evening reading has been relocated from bed to bathtub
• Fleece pants and extra comforter have been pulled out of storage
• Soup ingredients make up majority of grocery list

One other thing:

Coury and Porter? I really need to see a televised game to believe this.

Trying to be optimistic

My dad sent this article earlier this week. Ummm? No. I really don't think you should be able to play for Kentucky if you average 2 points as a senior in high school. Sure, we always need a Preston LeMaster or Steve Masiello to cheer for at the end of the game but they played and scored in high school. I guess I'm just getting nervous before the start of the season. I'm tired of getting disappointed early on and ending the season completely frustrated. At least my other Wildcats are looking good - a chance to break the top 25?

Day 5

One of the nice things about my job is that I can work from home occasionally. I've lately been working from the kitchen table on Mondays - what better way to ease back in to the work week? I generally get a lot done on the days I stay home but I have to deal with needy cats who must be in contact with my body at all times or risk death from lack of snuggling. Seriously, is it really that comfortable to be half hanging off the table, half falling off my lap?

Anyway, the work I've been doing on Mondays involves two computers at once so I feel like some overachieving stock trader as I type on one laptop and monitor a process on the other. (I don't know what a day as an overachieving stock trader would entail but I'm guessing it involves multiple computers and does not involve sitting at your kitchen table in your pajamas.) The working in pajamas perk is one I regret not taking full advantage of in the last four years.

Pretty Things

Heather and I went to the Handmade Market in Raleigh yesterday and I was able to overcome temptation and walk away empty handed. The level of quality is incredibly high at this biannual event and last spring I got a couple of great prints. I found a lot of inspiration for new projects. There were three artists in particular who I loved.
Bags - Mint Workshop
Prints and paintings - Alena Hennessy
Paintings and jewelery - Mikel Robinson

Cheese, anyone?

Raclette party tonight!

NaBloPoMo - Day 2

Dooce had a piece this morning about Halloween with her daughter and there was one paragraph that I knew my parents would identify with:
"So we zipped up her chicken costume and headed out, and immediately she started asking if we were headed to Grandmommy’s house, because why else would we be this excited? Do you even know what they’ve got at Grandmommy’s house? FREEDOM, THAT’S WHAT. She can do whatever the hell she wants to at that place, and if we head over there now maybe there’d be enough time to bathe in a tub of chocolate syrup."

That pretty much describes my Kentucky grandma's house perfectly. Until the 5th grade we lived a few minutes from my grandma so my sister and I spent a lot of time over there. We could watch tv shows and movies that were forbidden at our house, eat peppermint until we were sick to our stomachs, and take all the food out of the pantry to play "grocery" on the back porch. We loved to go through Grandma and Aunt Jane's closets and try on clothes and shoes before lining all the shoes up on the back porch and having a shoe sale. She'd give us money to walk down to the Gulf station with our cousins and buy Fun Dip and Pixie Stix.

People often ask if I miss living in the Midwest or wish my parents hadn't moved to Florida. The answer is a resounding "no" - I have no attachment to the town where I went to high school and Florida is a much nicer place to visit than Indiana. I just wish it were closer to Kentucky.

New Feature

I just added a little box to the left that shows links to other blog or website pieces that I've recently starred in Google Reader. I check my reader obsessively and always star items that make me laugh, have comments I want to come back and read, or give me ideas for new crafty projects, etc. I know some people don't read many blogs or spend much time messing around online because they don't know where to start - consider these links my "recommended" list. I'm going to update my actual links list later this month but I just wanted to explain the new box.

ETA: I also took down the Flickr badge since I haven't updated my pictures lately. I put in a new link to the photo page down in the links section if you ever want to check it out.

Grad school anxiety much?

Last night I had a complicated dream that boiled down to this: As part of a project work order I was forced to quit my job and work instead as a freelancer. This meant I was no longer eligible to receive the money in my 401k since I quit six months before the five year mark.*

Each year as school application deadlines pass I tell myself that I will be one year closer to that five year mark if I keep working rather than going back to school. This year is it - that excuse isn't going to work anymore and it's well known around the office that I'll be leaving in August. I have less than two months to get my act together. Doing nothing is not an option.

*I think part of this dream was brought on by reading the part in The Corrections where Alfred quits his job before retirement age and receives much grief from his family. I'm liking the book this time through (I quit after 50 pages a few years ago) but the parents make me really panicky and stressed out.